


my heart is a weapon of war

by springofviolets



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Elle Greenaway-centric, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character, Trauma, implied past child sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 13:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springofviolets/pseuds/springofviolets
Summary: With day after day in the sunshine, Elle feels relaxed, healed, the anger back to a layer just below the surface, driving her, motivating her, instead of boiling over. She is ready when just a few weeks later, Garcia calls her and says, in a confused, desperate rush, "Morgan's been arrested. In Chicago. For murder?"*Post-William Lee, Elle does not leave the BAU, and it changes how the Buford case goes.





	my heart is a weapon of war

**Author's Note:**

> \- this fic contains references to past child sexual abuse, but no details.
> 
> \- elle's compassion and how she dealt with victims of sexual violence always really seemed special to me, and then i read (idk if this is totally true) that in her character sheet, child sexual abuse was part of her own background. i got to thinking what it would be like if she hadn't been treated _so wrong_ and ended up leaving, and especially just a few episodes before the whole buford thing. so here it is. this fic has been a wip for almost two years at this point, so there's so much more i wish i could say, but it was time to just get it done and published.
> 
> \- title is from emilie autumn's "fight like a girl."

Elle is a self-aware woman. She knows she has been testy lately, but her attitude should not be enough to get called into Hotch's office, like a misbehaving student, for a lecture about his concern for her mental health. There's also no reason for him to be rehashing a case of self-defense that the Bureau already closed days ago.

"I am not admitting guilt because there is nothing for me to feel guilty about," Elle repeats, for what must be the third time. "If I had to do, I would absolutely do it all over again."

"Even though you killed someone," Hotch says.

"I _defended_ myself," Elle replies, "and all the women he would have hurt in the future. I have _never_ seen you drag another agent in for a lecture because an unsub got killed."

"You made it personal."

Elle slams her hands down on Hotch's desk and leans over towards him. "Of course it was personal, Hotch!  I had just been shot and you put me right in front of a serial rapist!" She lowers her voice. "You _knew_ every step of this was personal and you're still trying to act shocked at how it turned out."

Hotch glances away, silently thinking something over, then looks back at Elle. "Go home, Agent Greenaway, and this time, don't come back until you are actually fit for duty."

Giving him a last dirty look, Elle turns and leaves.

*

Elle does go home, followed quickly by a trip back to Montego Bay, where this whole mess started. She can't go to the same beach as before, but she goes to another one, soaks up the sun.

The thing is, Hotch should have known better than to send her into that case with Lee.  He should have known putting someone in that situation so soon after they returned from leave for a previous assault was bad news waiting to happen. That was not under question. But Hotch couldn't know how it was about so much more than being shot and later losing her temper. How her body was already a thing she needed absolute control of, and being shot in her home while she was sleeping was a violation of the security she spent years building up. How it may not have been about sex, but still Garner put a new hole in her body and put a part of himself inside it, to take and write with her blood.

Elle knows what kind of analysis they would have given that if it were any other victim.

Did they talk about it? Did Hotch tell them how it wasn't the first time? Were her body and her history both invaded and laid bare on the same day?

Still, Elle came back; this is her purpose. Every time she slams an unsub to the ground and sends him off to judge and jury and hopefully executioner, it feels like adding another day to her life. Of course she wouldn't leave that. She thinks of Gideon saying _I want you to think about this job, what you've been through, what you're capable of_ , like she was a fragile victim careening towards a breakdown at any moment, like he knows _anything_ about what she's been through or what she is capable of. 

In her judgment, she was ready. Maybe she wasn't.

Or maybe she was, actually, and William Lee goading her, thanking her for helping him rape women and letting him get away, saying she needs a man to protect her like he did them, his vile breath on her face, was always meant to happen, and her bullet was the end he always deserved.

What they don't get is that this was not a moment where she snapped and broke. She doesn't need a psychological evaluation. She made that decision based on the gut knowledge brought by years of the euphemistic _what you've been through_.

Her body feels warm and happy as she remembers Lee's cold, dead one.

There's nothing wrong with that.

*

This time she _is_ ready. With day after day in the sunshine, she feels relaxed, healed, the anger back to a layer just below the surface, driving her, motivating her, instead of boiling over. She is ready when just a few weeks later, Garcia calls her and says, in a confused, desperate rush, "Morgan's been arrested. In Chicago. For murder?"

It's such a ridiculous thought, bright, beaming, _sweet_ Morgan being held for murder.

When Elle was arrested, the cops were stupid, but okay, she fully owns the fact that she looks like she would kill a man. (She just hadn't _yet_.)

But Morgan? Garcia may be like rays of neon sun for their team, but Morgan is the constant steady light and warmth. He's the brawn of their team, sure, but the phrase "your heart is a muscle the size of your first" was invented for him--her own is more like "your heart is a bomb the size of a bomb"--and he works it just as hard as the rest of his strength. He's just _good_.

Morgan, who defended her when she was first arrested in Jamaica and and was the only one who wasn't completely surprised at how everything shook out. The only one of the team who didn't look at her like she had betrayed them. Before she left on her leave, he gave her a tight hug and told her she'd never have to explain her choices to him. Their hearts know each other.

So she assures Garcia everything will be okay and is on a flight to Chicago in no time.

When she lands she goes straight to the police station, where the rest of the team is already camped out, trying to get more information. All eyes are on here when she walks in; Hotch frowns, but fills her in. She nods along, rolling her eyes at some of the local police's claims.

"I'm going with you," she says without hesitation when Hotch asks to see Morgan. "We'll be able to help him better if we approach him as the friend he is rather than the suspect the police think he is," Elle tells him. The _and you'd be more likely to do the latter_ goes unsaid.

Hotch would probably object, except she's already ahead of him, going into the room.

"Elle," Morgan says with surprise. "You're back?"

Elle smiles and squeezes his shoulder briefly before sitting down. "Someone's gotta get you out of trouble. Now tell us what's going on. Why's this jackoff Gordinski so convinced of your guilt?"

Morgan sighs and leans back, telling them about the kid's body he found when he was younger, how he had a marker put up that he still visits when he's in town. "This kid was from my neighborhood and he was murdered and no one ever cared enough to solve it, or even find out his name," he says. "Yeah, it bothers me."

"And he takes that as a sign of guilt," Elle observes.

"Gordinski says you have a criminal record," Hotch says. Elle responds with a snort of disgusted disbelief.

"That was expunged. I was a minor," Morgan replies, rubbing his face. "I had a rough couple years and didn't always make the best decisions. I got into a couple fights, same as any other kid."

 _A rough couple of years_ , she hears, and thinks _oh, no, no._ Elle is doing math in her head. Teenage boys. An expunged record. Morgan's controlled rage simmering under all his brief, restrained answers to them. Her stomach drops, and she feels angrier, too.

He meets her eyes and she knows.

*

_Elle hadn't been on the team long when they had their first case involving little kids. It's cliche to say that it was rough on all of them, she knew--any cop's reminiscing will have a story about a particularly awful case with children and how it was terrible and changed everything. Well, it didn't change anything for them, necessarily, but tired as it might sound, it was rough. In different ways._

_Elle was used to it by then; she'd come from working sex crimes, after all. That didn't make it easier, but it meant, at least, that the beer in her hand was gonna be the only one she had, because she didn't have to drown her pain anymore._

_Morgan, though, looked like a different story. There's a certain sick feeling in your stomach you get when you know someone has been through the same unthinkable things you have, and she had been feeling it this whole case._

_It was two o'clock in the morning and they were in Maine in February--it was frigid, but Morgan was sitting outside by the hotel pool, stewing, when Elle dropped down next to him and handed him the other bottle she had._

_"They don't know, huh?" she had asked him._

_His eyes had cut over to her. "What?"_

_"Cases like these, it bothers all of them," she told him, "and I think Hotch's dad wasn't exactly the nicest guy around when he was a kid. But you and me... well, there's a difference between sympathy and empathy."_

_Morgan said nothing, but she could see his jaw clench._

_Elle continued: "My dad died when I was eight. I was a total daddy's girl, and with him gone I was so lost, and I clung to every new male authority figure I found."_

_"Elle, you don't have to--" Morgan started, but she held her hand up to stop him, and went on._

_"When I was twelve there was this really cool guy friend of my mom's. I thought I knew what I was doing at the time, and I thought I was doing it willingly. But then even that eventually wasn't enough for him." She shrugged then. "It fucked me up for a while, and I never told my mom. I'm okay with talking about it now, though. And I get to put guys just like him in prison every week." She gave a short, sharp laugh. "If I don't shoot them first, anyway. Kidding."_

_He was silent again, watching the moon bounce off the water._

_"You don't have to tell me anything," Elle had said. "But I wanted you to know, more than just sympathetic platitudes, that someone else really gets it."_

_After a few more quiet moments, Morgan had started to speak, voice rough._

*

"Is it the cop?" Elle murmurs to him. Morgan had never named names, but it makes a lot of sense.

He shakes his head. "Nah, Gordinski just hates me because he's a racist asshole." His eyes flicker to Hotch, and Elle notices.

"Hotch, can you get Morgan some coffee? Thanks," she adds, voice all faux-sweet. Hotch gives her a look that tells her he is barely tolerating her presence, but leaves anyway.

"You know, Hotch looks like he's about ready to give you the boot again," Morgan tells her.

Elle waves her hand. "Yeah, yeah." She leans in closer to him. "Now _tell me_."

Morgan takes a breath. "His name's Buford. He runs the youth center I went to… and that all these boys went to. I never woulda pegged him a murderer before, but this is too convenient." Elle nods, getting up. She doesn't need Morgan to explain anything else; what's shared between them fills in the gaps. She's going to get this bastard and bring him down hard. "Maybe you should leave your gun," Morgan suggests.

Elle grins at him. "Oh, no. No promises. I'll save the last shot for you, though, sweetie."

*

_"What did it feel like?" Reid had asked her at some point, after she shot Lee, but before she took her leave._

_"Seriously, did you not get the birds and bees talk ever?" she asked him in response._

_Reid frowned. "You know what I mean. I won't tell Hotch or anyone."_

_Elle threw down her cards--she was losing anyway--and looked at him. She hated the entitlement of the question, the idea that her feelings should be accessible to anyone, especially her team, who will take it and poke and prod at it, looking for answers that may or may not be there.  But then, she remembered, Reid hadn't been the one to push her into the situation, and at least he tried, in his own awkward way, to check in on her afterwards._

_"Okay. I know you guys probably figured otherwise when you talked about me, but I didn't actually go out intending to shoot Lee. He provoked me, that's the truth. But." Reid watched her closely and she gazed back at him. "It felt good to not have to take the high ground with someone who enjoyed being such a revolting person and never, ever would have stopped. To just… end him. For good."  She noted his wide, sad eyes, and picked her cards back up. "I know it's not a practical solution to all our cases. But you asked."_

*

In the end, she doesn't shoot Buford. Not even once, not even a little. She knows the fate that awaits people like him in prison will be infinitely more satisfying. Morgan doesn't have to see Buford until he's already behind bars, voice rough and face like stone; he softens when Elle comes to get him so they can head back to Quantico.

In the end, sitting next to Morgan on the jet, she finds it brings her a sense of closure, too. This is what she does, and she will keep doing it. She will never stop being the presence that shakes violent men to their core, because they do not intimidate her and she can meet them ounce for ounce in their aggression; she will keep being the one to send impassive male detectives away, to hold the hands of the victims, to understand the things that cannot be explained, only experienced, and provide them with solace. This is what she does.

In the end, she will never stop getting stronger.

**Author's Note:**

> i thrive on feedback!
> 
> you can also find me on [tumblr](http://springofviolets.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/springofviolets).


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